Stacey Colarossi, former associate head coach of China’s women’s national ice hockey team, will lead the Carleton Ravens in the 2022-2023 season, according to a statement released on Wednesday afternoon. Colarossi will be the team’s fifth head coach.
Colarossi’s arrival comes just over a month after Pierre Alain departed as head coach. Under Alain’s seven-year term, the Ravens failed to progress from the bottom-half of the RSEQ standings, where the team remained stagnant for nearly a decade.
Colarossi will bring an abundance of experience to the Raven’s locker room. She spent eight seasons behind the York University bench as an associate coach and helped Canada’s team win gold at the World University Games in 2011.
She then moved to Laurentian University. There, Colarossi was the program’s head coach for seven seasons.
During her time at Laurentian, Colarossi was a coach on the 2017 and 2018 U Sports all-star teams and won a silver medal with Canada’s team at the 2019 World University Games
Under Colarossi’s leadership, Laurentian had a record of 62-90-16, which was good enough for two playoff appearances. This record is impressive for a new program and substantially better than Carleton’s record over the same stretch of time.
She built the program from the ground up before the university cut funding in 2020.
In 2021, Colarossi helped coach the KRS Vanke Rays—a China-based team that plays in the Russian Women’s Hockey League—and the Chinese national ice hockey team. China’s women’s hockey team reached their first Olympics ever with Colarossi’s assistance and exceeded expectations with two wins.
As the new head coach, Colarossi will inherit the challenge of getting the Ravens to the playoffs—A task that hasn’t been accomplished since 2013 in a league where almost every team qualifies for the playoffs.
This past season Carleton held a record of 4-11-0 as the team struggled on defence and lacked an elite scoring threat. The current squad is particularly young, with only four of 26 players graduating after last season.
“There is work to do to build on the current framework and take this program to another level within U Sports,” Colarossi said in a press release.
The Ravens have already signed two new commitments, so Colarossi is unlikely to bring in an entirely different roster.
The team will begin their 2022-23 season in October.
Featured Image By Isaac Phan Nay
